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Unswept Lines At Cape Coral

The second of the USTA Super Senior Series is this week at Cape Coral (north of Ft. Myers) and they have an interesting policy: they sweep the baseline and the parallel service line; but do NOT sweep the side lines or the service box center line.

According to them, players find it “better for making line calls.” I am not sure that is true.

In my singles match (more below), there were several balls that “cleared the line” and were easy to call in. But there were a couple that gave “false positives,” where there was a clear mark out, even though the passing balls must have blown the material off the line.

I do not think it was the classic case of the ball skidding off the line and then leaving a mark wide; but rather just the air of the ball as it passed by. It did create some controversy, when you could see your ball clear the line and your opponent calls it out.

Now to match results:

For this tournament, I was one of the three #5 seeds; so had a bye on Monday. Yesterday, I played Gary Wilson from
DC, and we have a history of playing close, long matches…

• The first time we played, he beat me in two sets in two hours.
• Then I beat him in two sets in two hours
• Then we split two sets in two hours and (since it was a consolation match) played a 10-point tie breaker.

Yesterday was two sets in just short of two hours. I started off a little erratic and down 4-0 … losing my first service game after missing a game-point volley just deep; and then losing my second service game, blowing a 40-love lead.

But as Gary said, I then settled in and took control of the points, dictating play with my forehand. I won three of the next five games; but lost the set 6-3 (one break).

In the second set, we went back and forth with late set service breaks (even though both of us served well and neither of us had a double fault the whole match); but as the serving sequence would have it, my last one made it 6-4 him.

I was content with my play. But he really made some great saves to win some critical points.

Others:

• Tom McCune had an easy first-round win on Monday;
• But then he played a tough lefty named Don Keenan, losing 2 and 4 (but was serving 4-3 in the second set; so had his chances).
• Larry Albritton won a close first round match; and then beat #5 seed Fong in a third set tie breaker in the second round
• Mike Dahm is the 2 seed in the 60s; and had a bye then a 6-4, 6-4 second round victory
• Bill Simonton is a 5 seed in the 70s; so had a first round bye and an easy second round win
• Tom and I play our first doubles match this p.m. (and I play a consolation singles after that).

Well done George he is tough. BTW get used to the lines being swept in that manner. It is the new way of doing lines per USTA FL and the Grand Prix feels it has been successful at other venues. The cheaters will still cheat, period.

Bill – is that how it will be done at University Park for the Cat II? see you there. geo

On the court, it does work great; for the reason that on the sidelines, the white mark shows right up.. ( Cheaters are in a Box…). And on the other lines the LENGTH of the mark often will show on one side or the other of the swept line. Hoping nobody takes a splll for a while, on a dusty line…